This week I’m hosting Deb Kastner with Yuletide Baby (US only) and Janet Chester Bly with Wind in the Wires (US Print; Ebook Worldwide). If you want to enter the drawings for the books, please leave a comment on your post with your email address. I will not enter you without an email address (my way to contact you if you win). If you don’t want to leave an email address, another way you can enter is to email me at margaretdaley@gmail.com. The drawings end Sunday (Nov. 30th) evening.
Interview with the hero from Yuletide Baby by Deb Kastner
1. Pastor Shawn O’Riley, tell me the most interesting thing about you.
There was a time in the not-so-distant past when I wouldn’t have known how to answer that question. I’m a cowboy and a pastor—but now I’ve suddenly been thrust into the role of foster daddy, and let me tell you, that’s no easy feat. So, yeah, the most interesting thing about me is the baby that was left at my church on Christmas Eve. Her name is Noelle and she’s the cutest little thing—when she’s not crying.
2. What do you do for fun? I raise pigs on my farm for extra income. I enjoy spending time in the outdoors. I think Noelle does, too. I just strap her into a front pack and she comes along with me when I do my chores.
3. What do you put off doing because you dread it?
If I’m being honest, I’m not in a big hurry to see Noelle adopted. I know her best-case scenario is going to be in a loving, Christian home with both a mother and a father, but giving her away is going to break my heart.
4. What are you afraid of most in life? That I’m going to let someone down, not be there when I need to be. <<presses lips>> Sometimes that’s a matter of life or death.
5. What do you want out of life? Well, up until Noelle came into my life, I was pretty comfortable being a single man working as a pastor and a cowboy. Now? I’ve started thinking more and more about what it would be like to have a family someday, even if the very thought terrifies me. I’ve been spending a lot of time with local foster mom Heather Lewis and her three children. She’s not only assisted me with Noelle, but opened my eyes to the joys of family life.
6. What is the most important thing to you? After God? It’s not a what, it’s a who. Baby Noelle. And if I can help Heather with some of her problems, all the better, since she’s been such a good friend to me.
7. Do you read books? If so, what is your favorite type of book? Theology. Philosophy. Church history. The lives of the saints. I know. Boring, right? But I think we can learn a lot from the past, and maybe not make the same mistakes again. <<winces, then laughs>> Wow. Now I sound like a preacher.
8. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be? <<runs hand down jaw>> I would be more cognizant of my surroundings. I tend to be so much in my head that I miss what’s going on around me.
9. Do you have a pet? If so, what is it and why that pet? I’ve got a whole barn full of animals, everything from pigs to horses to chickens. Would you like a kitten? They’re cute little gray tabbies and they’ll grow up to be great mousers.
10. If you could travel back in time, where would you go and why? <<pulls in a deep breath>> Give me a second. This one is tough. I would go back to the moments just before my brother David died. I would do everything differently. If I had, he’d be with me now. But you can’t change the past, can you?
